UNM Sees Smart Growth in Enrollment

Recent efforts by the Uni­ver­sity of New Mex­ico to focus on strate­gies that max­i­mize stu­dent suc­cess are begin­ning to pay off, as sug­gested by early enroll­ment num­bers for the fall semes­ter 2011.   While over­all growth was mod­est, areas tar­geted in UNM’s smart growth strat­egy – upper divi­sion, grad­u­ate and online courses – saw sig­nif­i­cant growth.
 
Albu­querque cam­pus enroll­ment as of Mon­day, Aug. 22, the first day of fall classes, is up by 1.7 per­cent to 28,122, com­pared with the first day of fall term 2010. Stu­dent credit hours increased by two per­cent.
 
Upper divi­sion credit hours increased by 4.2 per­cent and grad­u­ate credit hours by 4.6 per­cent. By empha­siz­ing under­grad­u­ate reten­tion and grad­u­ate recruit­ment, the university’s smart growth strat­egy can improve stu­dents’ long-term suc­cess.
 
UNM con­tin­ued a trend of dra­matic increases in online enroll­ment, with the online head­count increas­ing by 68 per­cent and online credit hours by 80 per­cent. Online courses give stu­dents on cam­pus more ways to study and expand oppor­tu­ni­ties for those out­side Albu­querque. Along with part­ner­ships with com­mu­nity col­leges, online edu­ca­tion allows UNM to expand access by using resources more effi­ciently.
 
The num­bers will con­tinue to fluc­tu­ate as stu­dents change their sched­ules early in the semes­ter. Offi­cial counts are reported after the third week of classes.

Media Con­tact: Car­olyn Gon­za­les (505) 277‑5920, cell: (505) 249‑4669; e-mail: cgonzal@unm.edu